


the start of something she never expected

by hufflebee



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: F/M, First Dates, Fluff, Mother-Daughter Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-29
Updated: 2017-08-29
Packaged: 2018-12-21 10:10:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11941908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hufflebee/pseuds/hufflebee
Summary: She is a grown woman, mother of three, well, four, children; she is a Shadowhunter and a fighter, tough and stoic, yet the butterflies in her stomach make Maryse feel like a teenage girl experiencing a crush for the first time. She’s sitting across from Luke in the restaurant he’d picked out, their wine glasses almost empty, their food already gone.





	the start of something she never expected

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr: hufflebee.tumblr.com

Having Maryse at the Institute has become a more pleasant thing lately, even something Izzy looks forward to. She sees the change in her mother, not just towards Izzy and Alec, but also towards Downworlders. Alec hadn’t given Izzy details, but he did say their mother came to the loft and apologized to Magnus, sincerely and thoughtfully; had even suggested the three of them get dinner sometime.

Maryse and Robert had separated, and since divorce wasn’t very common practice amongst Shadowhunters, that was as official as they could get. Maryse still lives in the Lightwood house in Idris, and Robert had moved out, busying himself with Clave work or that other woman, Izzy doesn’t really know, doesn’t care to know.

It’s about a month after the official separation that Maryse is in New York, and Izzy hasn’t seen too much of her, missions and new recruits keeping her busy. So one evening she makes her way over to her mother’s room, pushing the already slightly open door. She finds her mother sitting on the bed, putting on an elegant pair of black heels, a deep green dress brushing against her ankles. Her hair is curled and almost completely loose, making her look infinitely less strict and stoic than Izzy has always seen her as.

“Don’t you look nice,” Izzy says, stepping into the room, her mother’s eyes lifting to her. “Hot date?”

She says it jokingly, but Maryse honest to the Angel _blushes._

“By the Angel, you do have a date.”

There’s a moment of complete silence, Maryse watching Izzy carefully as the realization settles in. Her mother has a date. Her sharp as a knife, cold as ice mother, but then again she’s not like that anymore, is she?

Her mother is still blushing.

Izzy slowly grins at her, and moves to sit beside Maryse, resting her head on her mother’s shoulder. She feels and hears when Maryse breathes out a sigh of relief, carefully leaning her cheek against Izzy’s hair.

“Is it anyone I know?”

“Yes, actually. It’s Luke.”

Head snapping up, Izzy gapes at her mother, who looks almost shy, her smile careful, and she doesn’t meet Izzy’s eyes. They sit like that for a bit, eventually looking at each other and breathing out soft laughs, and Izzy realizes her mother looks truly happy, for the first time Izzy can remember.

“I should get going,” Maryse says, standing up, hands moving to smooth down her dress. She turns to Izzy, and hugs her briefly, and Izzy whispers into her hair, “I’m really happy for you.”

* * *

She is a grown woman, mother of three, well, four, children; she is a Shadowhunter and a fighter, tough and stoic, yet the butterflies in her stomach make Maryse feel like a teenage girl experiencing a crush for the first time. She’s sitting across from Luke in the restaurant he’d picked out, their wine glasses almost empty, their food already gone.

For the first little while, they’d both started reminiscing the old days, due to familiarity or nerves, possibly both, but each story felt too careful, too heavy. Because there was no story from the days when they used to be friends that didn’t involve Jocelyn, or Valentine, or Robert; that didn’t serve as a reminder of the bad and the ugly following those stories. Stories from the years, nearly two decades really, when they hadn’t seen each other lasted even shorter, the bitter taste of her own ignorance and mistakes too strong in Maryse’s mouth. In the truly uncomfortable silence that had followed those stories, Maryse had thought of Alec.

If her son can fight tooth and nail against the Clave, against things even she had taught him, against all odds to find love, then goddamnit, she can figure out how to hold a conversation on a first date.

So she brings up the cabinet meetings, asks about the pack, and it’s like a switch between them, all that charged energy disintegrating as Luke talks about the work Alec is putting into relationships between Downworlders and Shadowhunters. He talks about his pack, about Maia, about Bat; and he does so with such fatherly love that Maryse thinks she could listen to him for hours.

She in turn talks about own her children, and as she finishes telling him how Max hacked into the training simulator back in Idris, Luke laughs, the sound filling the room to the brim with joy. And Maryse watches him, fascinated, because she can’t remember when she last heard him laugh like that.

She made him laugh like that, and the thought makes the butterflies in her stomach go wild.

* * *

 

They leave the restaurant shortly after, and Luke offers to walk her to the Institute.

“Are you sure? It’s really out of the way for you,” she says.

“I insist,” Luke says, and maybe it’s the softness of his voice, or the way he’s looking at her, but suddenly Maryse realizes he doesn’t want the night to end just yet. She nods and they start walking through the city, stories mixed with laughter following them the whole way.

He looks really handsome in the dark suit he’s wearing, and thinking that is becoming less and less strange to Maryse as the night goes on. She finds herself thinking it again when they reach the Institute, when she turns to him to say goodbye.

“I had a lovely time,” she says quietly, and he smiles at her, and says, “I did, too.”

A moment passes, and then another, yet neither of them moves, eyes on each other.

“I should really head back, make sure none of the cubs destroyed the Jade Wolf.”

“Yes, of course,” Maryse rushes out, and yet again a moment passes without either of them leaving. Luke leans forward then; pressing a soft, barely there kiss to her cheek as his fingers find hers by her side. It isn’t a grand gesture, in fact, it’s a small, quiet one, but it feels like fire beneath her skin, it feels like the start of something she never expected.

“Goodnight,” he says and Maryse echoes him. He starts walking away, glancing at her over his shoulder a few times, and she’s looking back every time. Soon enough, he turns a corner and is gone, and only then does Maryse allow the breath of laughter to escape her.

Smiling to herself, she presses a hand to her cheek, foolishly trying to keep the feeling of Luke’s kiss from leaving her. And even though it does, of course it does, just the memory of it is enough to keep her smiling the entire time before she goes to bed that night.


End file.
